Rising Ripoffs

Three weeks ago 12-year-old Shamira Fingers from South Philadelphia was walking down a city street near her home when she suddenly fell into an open sewer hole. Frantic witnesses called 911, and rescue crews rushed to the scene, pulled her out and took her to Children's Hospital, where she was reportedly treated and released. Investigators say Fingers was very fortunate to escape serious injury or even death after falling six feet into an open manhole, the cover of which had been stolen. In the last year a staggering 600 manhole covers have been swiped by thieves in Philadelphia.

"We used to see a handful taken each year, but nothing like this," Martin McColl, inlet cleaning supervisor for the Philadelphia Water Department, tells NEWSWEEK. "We lost 12 of them just last night in the north Philadelphia area. I'm in absolute shock by what we've seen here over the past year."

Manhole thefts aren't exclusive to Philadelphia. Thousands of cast iron manhole covers in cities across the country have been pilfered in the past year. Chicago lost 200 in one month, with 40 reportedly taken in a single day. Seventy-five have been taken recently in Greensboro, N.C. More than 50 have been stolen in Long Beach, Calif., since January. And in Cherokee County, Ga., more than 30 have been taken in just the last two weeks.

The cast iron covers, which typically weigh between 100 and 200 pounds, are being taken by opportunistic thieves responding to the increased value of scrap metal and the burgeoning demand for recycled metals in China, India, South Korea and other developing nations. In 2001 scrap metal sold for $77 a ton. In 2004 it was $300 per ton, and today it's nearly $500. Stealing the covers is usually a two- or three-man operation, police say, in which the thieves yank the covers out of their holes with crowbars, throw them in the backs of vans or trucks, and take them to scrap metal yards, where they get only $10 to $20 per cover.

There have been few injuries reported to date, but this rash of thefts has created an obvious safety hazard for unsuspecting pedestrians like Fingers as well as for motorists and bicyclists. It's also costing municipalities big bucks. Replacing a single manhole cover costs as much as $500, including labor costs to cut the new cover in addition to the cost of materials. In Philadelphia, McColl says, most of the stolen covers are technically not over manholes but "inlets," which can be either circular or rectangular. The covers weigh an average of 40 to 60 pounds, and their theft has already cost the city more than $50,000.

Manhole cover theft is not an easy crime to stop. "It's tough to catch these thieves in the act," says Lt. Frank Valore of the Philadelphia Police Department. "But we're setting up stings; we're working on it. It's a high priority." In Long Beach, Calif., the cops are trying to catch a small group of aggressive thieves that has struck mostly in the alleyways in the southwest part of the city over the last several months. More than 50 manhole covers belonging to the Long Beach Water Department have gone missing since the beginning of the year (10 disappeared in just one day last week).